


each time you fall

by blindbatalex



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Boston Bruins, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, an appreciation of Bergy's dog, angst but resolved angst, it sucks to fight with people you love, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:38:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: He is not used to this - not used to sitting around whole day with nothing to do in the middle of the season. The world around is at a standstill, and in it Patrice feels out of place - wrong.





	each time you fall

**Author's Note:**

> Bergy is out injured (and of course it turned out that he skated through the Sabres game with a fractured foot) and I have a lot of feelings okay

Sunday is a Bad day, with a capital B. They get dismantled by the Sabres and there is no dignity in it, nothing they can take away. 

If it only ended there. 

Back home, Brad walks into the bathroom to brush his teeth and doesn’t stand on ceremony. Patrice usually knows to lock the door if he really wants Brad out. But apparently not tonight because Brad finds him rummaging in the medicine cabinet for leftover prescription painkillers when he walks in. 

Something flashes in Brad’s chest at the sight, red hot.

 _Bergy_ , he says. Patrice jumps a little and turns to face him - plasters a smile on his face. It’s late and they are both exhausted but he looks -

It's alright, he says, I'm alright. He doesn’t look alright.

Brad wants to shout. He wants to say _are you fucking kidding me_ , but all it would achieve is to make Patrice put the bottle back in the cabinet to prove how fine he is and lie awake in bed, in pain. They have been there too.

So Brad smiles back and lets it go for now, but he hates Patrice a little that night as he lies in his own corner of the bed. He hates him for the way he still keeps shutting Brad out, hates him for refusing to do the sensible thing for once and sit a night out. 

(He hates that Patrice is hurt - has been hurt since yesterday and there is nothing whatsoever he can do to make it better.)

It's not fair.

*

Patrice wakes up to the smell of breakfast and a sharp ache in his foot.

You should get that checked out, Brad says carefully as they sit down with the food he made and coffee. Patrice didn't think he was obvious about it but looks like he was. (Or it’s that Brad has always been so damn perceptive and it's worse now that they are practically living together.)

It's just sore, he answers. They already took an x-ray. It came back clean.

Brad doesn't look particularly convinced. And as it turns out he has reason not to - turns out there is a small fracture in his foot that the initial x-ray missed.

Patrice tries to listen to the doctor, nod where it’s appropriate but there is only one question in his mind. He can’t miss games - not now - and his foot doesn’t even hurt that much in the grand scheme of things - he has played through much worse.

The doctor frowns and scratches at his beard. 

You could skate through it, he says, but it would drag out the recovery. 

You are absolutely not, Brad says once Patrice relays him the information, something fierce in his eyes.

Patrice wasn't exactly asking for his opinion or permission. This - what they have now - it doesn’t give him the right.

So he says as much and then he says a few other things while he is at it too. 

They feel good in the heat of the moment, justified, and leave him with a dull ache in his chest later, when all is said and done and he is lying in bed, nothing but cold sheets to take up Brad’s side of the bed.

It isn’t Brad’s fault that he got injured. He knew that and yet -

*

It’s awkward in the morning. But Patrice tells him he will sit it out and that’s all that matters in the end. He apologizes too, not quite meeting his eye and Brad takes it - God knows he doesn’t do any better when he is out either.

(One of these days, he thinks darkly sometimes, Patrice will be injured and he will be suspended and that will be that - that will be how it ends.)

They give Patrice a protective boot and crutches and tell him to not to put any weight on the foot for at least a week and Patrice’s face on the drive back is something to behold - dark and with a frown that seems set on his brow for life.

Brad wants to smooth the lines away until the worry and the pain is gone from Patrice’s face - until he is all smiles again, open and easy and loving, but doesn’t know how. And the anger and the hurt lingers in the space between them, pulls Patrice further away.

He doesn’t really expect Patrice to join in for the pre-game nap in the afternoon.

Patrice is a little late and climbs into the bed quietly so as not to disturb him, though Brad is far from asleep. (They said at the start that they wouldn’t let this affect their game, that the team came first, always and yet-)

He keeps to his own side, doesn’t snuggle up to Brad like he normally does. He still finds Brad’s hand under the covers though and gives it a light squeeze. Brad holds onto it, draws circles on Patrice’s wrist with his thumb - a silent apology and an I love you tucked into one. 

Wilson leaves his spot under the covers by Brad’s feet to sidle up to Patrice.

Treason of the highest order, Brad mutters without opening his eyes (and he thinks he can hear Patrice chuckle softly in return.)

*

On Wednesday it rains. Patrice picks up a book - an action thriller he meant to read since the summer - and settles on the window seat with a cup of tea and the afghan. He cracks open a window, just wide enough to hear the sound of rain and smell the petricor without letting the water in. It feels like spring for the first time in a while, even though it’s still only early March - the air outside is just on the side of chilly but fresh and brisk where before it used to be positively freezing. The muted light that cascades in from the windows gives the room an eerie quiet.

He is not used to this - not used to sitting around whole day with nothing to do in the middle of the season. The world around is at a standstill, and in it Patrice feels out of place - wrong.

Wilson likes it though, loves having someone around in the house during the day. He follows Patrice everywhere, wagging his tail and occasionally letting out a happy bark. He even figured out how to play fetch without making Patrice move - where he used to throw his tennis ball in all sorts of places while “retrieving” it for his human to then chase after, he now duly brings it to Patrice’s hand for the next throw.

Now too, he hops on and settles on Patrice’s lap and rests his head on his thigh. Patrice scratches behind his ears and he leans into the touch - wags his tail slowly as if the atmosphere caught onto him as well.

Patrice opens the book but he doesn’t make it very far at all. The words keep eluding him; he ends up reading the same passage three times without retaining half of what it says. 

It’s 3pm and the afternoon stretches in front of him, endless, still. He could turn on the TV again if he moved to the sofa - watch a movie, or maybe give his mom a call.

In the end he doesn’t do any of those things. Wilson is a small but solid weight on his lap and the patter of rain on the window almost feels hypnotic. His eyelids grow heavy as he scrolls through his phone and he rests his head against the glass - closes his eyes - just for a moment.

 

Brad is already back by the time he realizes he fell asleep. 

 

Wilson jumps down from his lap to greet his other favorite human and Patrice tries to make sense of his surroundings now that they shrouded in the halflight of dusk. He is still blinking when Brad walks in. 

Brad’s face melts into a smile when he sees Patrice - one of his soft smiles that he reserves only for things he is fiercely fond of and that makes Patrice melt in turn as well.

Brad presses a kiss on his temple and - he has missed this. It’s only been what? -- a couple of days? and mostly his own doing but he has missed this so much.

Go back to sleep, Brad says. He pulls the afghan that has since fallen to the side over him, ruffles his hair. Wilson and I will wake you when dinner is ready. Isn’t that right, Wilson?

Patrice watches them trot together to the kitchen. His foot aches in pangs - the painkiller has long since worn away - and it sucks to sit here like this, to know that he is letting his teammates down with every day he spends away from the ice.

In the kitchen Brad tells Wilson that “two can play at this game” and makes a series of high pitched barks, followed by more enthusiastic barking from Wilson.

Patrice chuckles. So much for letting him go back to sleep.

(And if something hurts a little in his chest at how lucky he is - that he gets to have this, well-)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, friends. Kudos and especially comments are always welcome - they help me write better because positive feedback is one hell of a drug! Some notes:  
> \-- Yeah the [Sabres game](https://www.nhl.com/news/boston-bruins-buffalo-sabres-game-recap/c-296359550) did not go our way.  
> \-- Please look at how disappointed Bergy looks in this [entire interview](https://www.nhl.com/bruins/video/locker-room-raw-patrice-bergeron/t-277437088/c-58248303?q=patrice+bergeron) and suffer with me.  
> \-- But also Wilson! is so [tiny!](http://hockeyplayerswithpets.com/post/125355003253/patrice-bergeron-and-his-dog-wilson-source) and so [cute!](https://weareunited.tumblr.com/post/171066763211/rasks-i-just-got-the-pups-and-pucks-bruins)  
> \-- I’m also on tumblr @ blindbatalex if you’d like to come say hi, share headcannons, or talk about fic <3


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